Nick Praulins
Nick Praulins is co-founder of The Nordic Learning Company, where he leads our work with schools and educators, shaping the learning philosophy, pedagogy and programme design behind its education practice.
Read more →Playground Thinking® for Innovation
What would it take to move an important idea from discussion to something you can test, improve and use?
Many promising ideas stall because teams spend too long talking about them before anyone can see, challenge or develop them. Playground Thinking® gives people a practical way to make ideas visible, work on them together and learn from early experiments.
- Price
- SEK 16,910per participant, excluding VAT
- Next date
- Starts 10 May 2027
- Duration
- 2 days + online follow-up
More details
- Format
- In person
- Location
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Venue
- Details to follow
- Language
- English
- Designed by
- Nick Praulins
What you’ll be better able to do
- Lay out and run a creative process for your team, from divergent idea generation through to a testable first version, so innovation becomes a repeatable practice
- Strengthen the collaboration skills that let ideas be owned and built by a group
- Develop the mindset and practical skills to move from idea to first attempt fast
- Spot your own habitual response of over-planning and recognise when it's time to experiment
- Shift the underlying mindset that treats failed attempts as data to act on, not failures to avoid or hide
A practical Playground Thinking® process, a set of methods for moving a team from talk to a small experiment, and one real challenge you have already begun to work on differently.
Dates
- Choose this date →
10 – 11 May 2027
In person · Stockholm, Sweden · Venue to be confirmed09:00–16:00EnglishSEK 16,910 per participant, excluding VAT - Choose this date →
26 – 27 August 2027
In person · Stockholm, Sweden · Venue to be confirmed09:00–16:00EnglishSEK 16,910 per participant, excluding VAT
Price and what’s included
SEK 16,910 per participant, excluding VAT
Playground Thinking Toolkit, all materials, a certificate of participation from The Nordic Learning Company, lunch, fika and refreshments. Travel and accommodation are not included.
For organisations
How does your team move an important idea from discussion to something it can test?
We can run Playground Thinking® for Innovation privately for your organisation, using a real question your team is stuck on.
Tell us who the course is for, roughly how many people, and what you would like to be different afterwards. We will come back with a proposal.
Course details
Programme & method
- Day 1: Enter the Playground
- Start with a challenge that matters. Use the Playground Thinking® framework to make assumptions visible, generate material to work with and open up possibilities that are difficult to reach through discussion alone.
- Day 2: Make it testable
- Take one promising direction and give it form. Build, question, adapt and decide what a small first experiment could look like in your own team.
- Online follow-through
- Bring back what happened when the work met real conditions. Examine what the team learned, decide what to change and use individual coaching to work with a specific challenge.
How you’ll learn
Expect to make, move, question, build, experiment, and talk. Over two days, short inputs are mixed with physical challenges, visual thinking, and creative exercises. The experiences are deliberately playful to spark innovative thinking. No particular industry or professional background is required: different perspectives make the Playground better.
Evidence & methodology
Short inputs set up each stage of the work, then participants make, move, sketch, question and experiment with a real team challenge. The group tests ideas in small, low-risk forms, receives feedback and decides what to take back into everyday work.
The course design combines evidence-based research with field-tested facilitation methods. Stuart Brown's research on play, Tim Brown and IDEO's work on creative confidence, and Amy Edmondson's research on psychological safety establish why play builds real problem-solving ability and why teams only experiment openly when they trust they won't be punished for failing. David Kolb's experiential learning cycle inspires the structure of the days.
Practicalities
Who it’s for
- Leaders and managers
- Innovation, strategy and transformation professionals
- People and Culture and L&D teams
- Product, project and programme leaders
- Curious professionals who want to bring more creativity and innovation to their teams and work
What you need
- No particular industry or professional background is required. Participants bring a real team, idea or project challenge to explore.
Designed by
Want the full programme?
Before you book
When is the course confirmed?
A course is confirmed once six people have joined. We confirm your place separately, and ask you not to book travel until you have our confirmation.
What if someone cannot come after all?
Open sessions can be transferred to another date free of charge up to fourteen days before. Inside fourteen days, send a colleague in their place. Private programmes follow the terms agreed in the contract.
Related learning
Facilitation Skills for Better Meetings and Workshops
Design and lead the conversations that move a group from talk to action.
Building Psychological Safety in Your Team
Create the conditions for candid, high-standard conversations in which people can raise concerns, learn from mistakes and contribute their thinking.
Leading Global Teams
Lead international teams with greater clarity, trust and cultural intelligence.